"Extraordinary ordinary house" in London named UK's best new home

part of responsibility of Designing somebody's home as Architects is to really take the time to understand how they live and what their needs are and how they want to live every day they wanted something that was kind of innovative and experimental and they wanted to try out things that hadn't been done before so the client's brief was really about a big house but with a little budget and about creating a large amount of Living Spaces that were connected to the gardens but at the same time creating five bedrooms we just kept our Necessities quite minimal which is the number of rooms open space and light it was really a fascinating process we both actively tried to give as open a brief to The Architects as possible cuz we felt that that's kind of the compromise so we might not have the best money but we'll be as open to your ideas and open to The Architects creativity as we could be when we first started working with Tom and am and deine when we visiting their house uh it was full of plants and Greenery and it was very obvious that was something that was part of how they live dayto day um so that became quite an important part of the brief and design point for this house one of the favorite elements of the house is the constant connection to Nature so be it through the front sliding doors or these windows or all the roof light we've always got a connection with what's going on outside and essentially the gardens just feel like extensions of our living space we sat down with them for probably about 2 or hours just talking about the spaces how they lived the difficulties of where they were living at that particular point and what they had hoped for and what they were going to live in working with the budget was a really interesting constraint on this project there's a lot of consideration about the kind of the judiciousness of how we spend that budget and how we spend it intelligently so the house is constructed using cross laminated Timber or CLT which gives it structural rigidity CLT itself the Caron footprint of is actually carbon negative so that actually helps to offset some of the other elements which are more unavoidably carbon heavy when I walked into the house for the first time I really remember that feeling of light and how the light changes throughout the day and how the bamboo gives us privacy to Shield us from the neighbors so it feels light until you want to close the curtains to go to sleep and I think that's a real privilege to have that in London because we are surround Ed by neighbors and I love that about living in this house my favorite space is definitely the the front of the house the idea that all of the screens can be totally closed up and feel quite kind of insul on the other hand can be totally opened up and kind of expose all the bamboo kind of hanging out in quite a wild and raw kind of way basically the plan of the house is just a block form which also made it very efficient and relatively simple to construct so they're not spending money on on dressing and Plastering and plaster boarding and things like that and actually that informed quite a lot of the aesthetic of the house we've used materials in an unusual way so the cladding externally is an agricultural Roofing sheet there's also things like the the flooring upstairs which is a a cork rubber normally used in gaskets and we've done quite a few unusual details such as we've cut the doors straight into the cross-laminated timber walls themselves so we've done away with all door frames and things like that it made a challenge to make us kind of more creative with materials and how we might use them what I thought I really didn't want and I'm glad now I have is the broken plan I just didn't understand it and the other thing is the curtains we thought it would be an absolute Nightmare and I love the curtains um now and I love that we can close the living room off and in the winter particularly that it makes it such a cozy little space so those were the two things that they knew we needed and we would ultim want that collaboration was very very helpful I think these types of devices are really helpful to begin to kind of open the space up and close the space down I wanted a house that flows well and that is easy to live in as a family and practically that means easy cleaning easy tidying all those things that make a space lovely to be in without being hard work my favorite space in the house is the central h space which we affectionately call the Tottenham Riad it not only brings light in um and makes this kind of quite awesome double height space in the center of the house but it also connects all of the Living Spaces together so for example if the kids are playing upstairs Tom and amine can still see and hear them it's encouraged everyday togetherness of the family without feeling on top of each other we don't feel crowded but we still feel connected The Narrative from many sources was very much this is a very silly decision it's ridiculous that you're going going to try and build a house in London while you're pregnant without huge pots of money and we very quickly rejin to clar and Nick and the team at hayhurst because of their ability to kind of speak the truth and and and say that actually self-building is completely feasible it's completely doable with the right team and the right kind of handholding I guess I think as Architects it's always really satisfying to see the end result seeing it being lived in and used in a nutshell a funfilled bright joyous family home low budget super eco and a bit [Music] pop

Channel: Dezeen

Views: 172,130

Keywords: Dezeen, RIBA, RIBA House of the Year 2023, Architecture, Residential, Houses, London houses, Hayhurst & Co

Id: 2r2Oq30gVgQ

Length: 5min 44sec (344 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 07 2023